Long Time Gone: Computerworld Magazine to Stop Printing

Geoffrey Norman

June 20, 2014 1:40 PM

Thirty-five years ago, the first issue of a magazine called Computerworld was launched into a world that had never heard of all sorts of things that have become essential elements of ordinary life. Now, the magazine is taking a step that seems, somehow, very late in coming. It is ceasing publication on paper and going all digital.

The magazine’s editor, Scot Finnie, offers an elegy for the days of dead trees and messy inks.

It's sad to lose anything that has endured so long. But we are merely taking part in the natural evolution of the media industry, like so many great publications before us. Trains, after all, were once powered by coal and steam; Computerworld is moving from paper to electrons.

The IRS did this some time back. Easier to lose electrons than to burn paper.